A/N: Well, just a story of randomness, I guess. I got bored one fine day and started writing and BAM! I got this idea. Hee hee. I like it, so I’m going to stick with it. Fear not, if you’re a reader of my James (II)/OC story, I’m still writing that too. Anyway, hope you guys like it, please review. This is just the prologue chapter.

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Since the beginning of time, the Van Allen family has been one of the most well-know, well-respected, prestigious, pureblooded families in the world. Every generation, each and every witch or wizard with Van Allen blood, someone has done something extraordinary and magnificent.

But, in 1980, the option to brag about their pureblood lineage was put into question one dark, stormy June evening; the birth of Alexandria Phoenix Van Allen, the daughter of Cassandra Van Allen—an Auror and a woman with more secrets than a person’s diary holds in a year...

I don’t exactly know what happened that fateful day I was born, but what I do remember was that nobody on my mother’s side of the family wanted anything to do with her. They disowned her, threw her out of their lives like she were just something they could get rid of that easily. I don’t know much, but I do know that they gave her two options; keep me and get disowned, or stay with the family and put me up for adoption.

Cass refused to put me up for adoption and leave me to wonder who my real family was. She wanted to raise me on her own, and she did. She made a life for herself, without the help of her family. The only one who probably ever even bothered with me was Discordia, Cass’s mother; my grandmother. She sent birthday and holiday cards, along with some money, but it was always for me to save up and use wisely. She sent a letter by owl occasionally and sometimes, when Cass wasn’t home, we talked through floo, but never face to face.

Discordia was an uptight woman. She’s at least somewhere in her eighties—maybe seventies—yet she looks like she’s in her fifties from what I can see through the fireplace. I don’t think you’d find a woman like Discordia around in this day and age anymore. Maybe in the Victorian era, where older, richer women walk around with an air of haughtiness and a stick up their arse attitude, but still, Discordia was a good grandmother...I guess.

I tried not to bring Discordia into conversations. Cass never got along with her mother. It wasn’t that she hated Discordia, because the woman was still Cass’s mother, and Cass was never one to hate...well, without reason. They just...never got along. Discordia lost all hope in making Cass into the perfect lady and began doting on my aunt Rose, who was disowned before I was born because she preferred the ways of Voldemort.

Nevertheless, my family is screwed up.

I talk to my cousins somewhat, we all go to Hogwarts. But most of them prefer not to be around me. None of us prefer to acknowledge we’re related...well, me and those stuck up, no good, rich snobs I’m related to by blood and force, not because I want to be prefer that way. There are at least three that I can stand, and most of them are a year younger or older than me. I’ve got one cousin who I can stand that’s in my year, but he’s in Ravenclaw. Stupid Oliver with his stupid brains...

I’ve never talked to my aunts or uncles. I don’t care much for them anyway. They’re the ones who pushed for the disownment of Cass. They didn’t bother to acknowledge the existence of me or my mother; they just didn’t care. Of course, Cass did. Cass always cared. Honestly, I don’t see why she tries. It confuses me to no end. I’d be furious, and heartbroken. I wouldn’t have an ounce of love in my heart if they did that to me in my time of need.

But Cass was stronger than I was; she was a far better person than anyone in the world. She loved her family, despite the fact that most of them could care less about her. She still loved Rose, too. I knew that. Cass had always been closer to Rose—maybe it was because they were closer in age? Rose was barely a year younger...

Cass never spoke badly about her family. All I ever heard from her were good things. I never understood her and her ways. Cass surprised me about everything...

Then, there was my father’s side of the family. There honestly wasn’t much to say. According to Cass, they were all dead—my grandparents died somewhere in my toddler years. I had an uncle who was killed by Voldemort—or so Cass says. She not sure about what happened to him either. That’s about all I know of my paternal family.

Dad isn’t around anymore. Cass just tells me that he left one day and never came back. She said there was more to the story, more reason behind it, but she wouldn’t tell. She just promised over and over to tell me his story one day, maybe when I was older and knew how to handle my emotions better, or maybe it would just slip out sometime in my adolescent years and I would explode and hate her for life.

That’s what she told me when I was little. I made a vow that if that latter option happened, I would never hate her. I couldn’t even begin to picture hating Cass. How could I? She’d been there for me from the beginning. I owed her so much. It was because of me that she lost her family. I couldn’t just abandon her.

But Cass was hiding something. Every time she looked at me now, there was something in her eyes; she was thoughtful, depressed, enraged, proud, sorry...

I could never tell. There were so many emotions playing in her eyes. Before I could focus more, she would snap back into her calm, collected self and go on as if she hadn’t been staring at me as if there was something wrong with me that was all her doing and she’d wished I’d never been born. The thought of her staring at me like that made my heart twist painfully in my chest. Didn’t Cass love me? Wasn’t I her daughter?

Looking back now, I realize that I was stupid to think that Cass could ever hate me. She was just trying to protect me from a fate she didn’t want to wish upon me. Oh, why did I have to go and look at that bloody mirror?